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Post by charliebrown on Aug 19, 2017 15:33:19 GMT
We flagged this up publicly almost as soon as the loans started*, so why did so many people throw money into them? Everybody should do some DD to reveal and expose untrustworthy borrowers and inept platform operatives, to minimise their own losses. In many cases, lenders didn't. * Lendy, in their arrogance, publicly posted somewhere on this forum, that it wasn't the borrower's "record" that mattered - it was the security. They couldn't even get that realistically right, as in some other loans. I'm off for a banana. I avoided investing in these 2 loans thanks to reading the alarm bells that were posted on this board. i don't stand to lose anything in these loans but in many ways that's not a comfort. I think all LY members lose out here whether they're personally invested in these loans or not. ISTM that all p2p sites, including LY, are very sloppy. They're wide open to determined fraudsters and charlatans. A soft touch. Some platforms don't even seem to care, they simply say oh well defaults happen, make sure you're diversified and we'll all be ok. On to the next one....
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Post by charliebrown on Aug 12, 2017 14:37:17 GMT
A guarantor is liable for the entire amount of the loan and interest and can be chased through the courts until they either pay up or are bankrupted. If security has been overvalued, or a developer throws in the towel leaving a property unfinished, or your warehouse full of jeans/shop full of furniture turns out to be missing or worthless, then tough. Assetz takes a personal guarantee as well as security and in some cases, it's the guarantee that's recovered the loan, not the security. Interesting point this as I've always thought a personal guarantee would be pretty powerful, however, I've seen some people (more knowledgeable than me) commenting that a personal guarantee is not worth the paper it's written on. So, which is it?
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Post by charliebrown on Aug 12, 2017 1:46:21 GMT
You do seem to be very happy to regularly openly contradict yourself. Maybe you do not even realise you are doing it. If you want to say that FC only make 26% recovery on defaults how can you ignore the current defaulted loans on Lendy (as an example)? Lendy currently have £23m in loans that are defualted with zero recovery so far. You can't just take the loans where a recovery has occured but not do the same for FC. Thats £23m out of a total loan book of £186m and theres another £25m of that that has not yet been defaulted but is not paying any interest. It is also nonesense to say you get a minimum 70%+ recovery with a secured asset. There are plenty of people on FS and L who would snap your hand off for a 70% recovery on a number of loans they are holding. I personally have lost 50%+ on secured loans that have defaulted. I would happily sign for FC to give me back 40% on my losses in 12 months. Unfortunately FC is simply recovering those cases where the borrower is collaborative (and maybe signs for a different much longer contract, which is never approved by the lenders BTW...) and if you take 5 years as normal, then be happy with it. Security backed loans defaulting leave the lender with the security. It takes a bit of time (generally around 12 months, but in some cases even just few weeks) to sell the asset. All the cases concluded at Lendy have brought in 100% capital recovery for lenders (and the net recovery according to the data I gathered from Lendy comments are over 80% of the lent capital on average). I don't have a precise count with me, but I believe Lendy closed (finished recovery) about 10 loans. They have other loans which have been defaulted in the last 3-4 months (new default definition) and these will need to get to a sale. Wait before commenting on those. Only after the recovery you will judge the company (and the asset of course). FS has many more defaults (probably over 50) so you can gather much more precise stats. But I can ensure you I have over 85% recovery on my subset. I would not bring in discussion on individual specific loans, as I could easily mention 4 high-ranking cases on my book where the nice FC team recovered ZERO from nice lawyers defaulting after very few loan repayments (piloted defaults, case closed with IVAs, nice houses sold by wifes, lawyers disqualified for a very short period but studios reopened a few months later).... So I lost close to 100% on those 4 FC cases with zero recovery past or coming.... We investors need to cut through the marketing and "statistics". Lendy can proudly say no investor ever lost a penny on their platform. Wait a minute, have you visited their defaults tab. There's lots and lots (and growing fast) of defaulted loans, some have been in default for well over 1 year and the updates provided are laughable. As for asserting that minimum recovery would be 70%, I don't agree. The latest loan to go bad at Lendy is the Exeter loan, good luck in even recovering anything from that, it's a disaster. My conclusion is that all p2p platforms have issues. They're all sloppy and badly run IMO. I also believe they're a very soft touch for borrowers (unscrupulous ones), a risk free goldmine for the platform owners and something to be very carefully of for investors. It's true that most p2p-ers are enjoying better returns than they'd get from a savings account, but keep your eyes open, p2p risk is way higher than a savings account.
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Post by charliebrown on Aug 10, 2017 12:21:25 GMT
I'm not happy. I went for the non-diversified approach and put my money in just a few loans. I don't always believe diversification is the best approach, but with FC it seems I got really unlucky. I put money in 18946 (defaulted), 29514 (defaulted), 21802 (defaulted), 18602 (defaulted), 29700 (late and looks sure to default). The odds of almost every loan I touched defaulting must just make me very unlucky. I'm exiting FC with capital loss of around 6K pounds, it's been a truly terrible experience for me and I will never come back. That's just my experience, but good luck to all the other investors who enjoy great returns on FC, sadly I wasn't one of them. That is a very wide spread over very few loans. Out of curiosity when is diversification not the best approach? Let me clarify that. Diversification is a sensible strategy. My thought process was, yes, you can back every horse in the race and you'll always win. However, if you back 1 horse and it wins you win more. My experience shows that it's not a good strategy and one should always diversify as a sound investment strategy. What I did was a gamble and we shouldn't be gambling here, save that for the casino. Lesson learned, the hard way. However, I still won't be back to FC as I feel there are fishy looking loans made. Borrowers that borrow significant sums then make a few repayments and then default. Just my opinion. If I hadn't had such a bad experience I could easily be posting that I'm happy and a big FC fan.
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Post by charliebrown on Aug 9, 2017 2:35:16 GMT
Two VERY positive reviews about Lendy Cowes Week;Lendy Cowes Week: ReviewAs we reach the end of another week of the iconic sailing regatta, Suzanne and Alan share their review of Lendy Cowes Week. onthewight.com/lendy-cowes-week-review/Behind the scenes at Lendy Cowes Week 2017Tom Belger www.bridgingandcommercial.co.uk/article-desc.php?id=12315BTW, I don’t work for Saving Stream/Lendy and I didn’t attend the 2017 edition of Lendy Cowes Week. Neither do I do PR work for Lendy or for any Company… The motivation for me for ALL these posts, has been a simple thank you to Lendy (Saving Stream), for changing my own personal finances in such a positive way. You do know that Lendy didn't organise the thing, don't you? It looks like it was a great week, but that is down to the excellent team surrounding the event; it does need money, which is where the sponsor comes in. Nobody thanks Barclaycard for a successful premier league season (i do know that they no longer sponsor it - it's the only one I could think of)This sponsorship is a good LY... if they were still offering boat loans! As a property based loan company, I can't see the reasoning for this sponsorship except for an excuse to have a bit of a jolly. So I can't see it attracting new lenders, and while there are genuine concerns surrounding the loan book, I can't see it pleasing existing lenders either JMO I completely agree. The loan book is under strain, look at all the defaulted loans (some more than 1 year defaulted and still without any resolution), more troubled loans heading for default, a dry pipeline, a sluggish SM and a PF that's taken a hammering. I really don't think it's the right time to be splashing out cash in sponsorship and all going off on a jolly. That's my opinion.
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Post by charliebrown on Aug 9, 2017 2:18:04 GMT
I'm not happy. I went for the non-diversified approach and put my money in just a few loans. I don't always believe diversification is the best approach, but with FC it seems I got really unlucky. I put money in 18946 (defaulted), 29514 (defaulted), 21802 (defaulted), 18602 (defaulted), 29700 (late and looks sure to default). The odds of almost every loan I touched defaulting must just make me very unlucky. I'm exiting FC with capital loss of around 6K pounds, it's been a truly terrible experience for me and I will never come back. That's just my experience, but good luck to all the other investors who enjoy great returns on FC, sadly I wasn't one of them.
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Post by charliebrown on Aug 6, 2017 1:27:59 GMT
I feel the risks here are not even worth the 12%. The stakes are already high but when you add in platform incompetence, potentially fradulent borrowers and potentially fraudulent valuers and other 3rd parties it seems borrowers like us are going to take a bullet sooner or later regardless how well our DD is done.. I think this is a typo? Whoops, yes, should be investors/ lenders. It was very late when I wrote that, I'm not on uk time.Thanks.
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Post by charliebrown on Aug 5, 2017 18:45:53 GMT
I've got a significant sum sunk into this loan I'm growing very tired of all things p2p to be honest, I think I'm about ready to throw the towel in. i've had lots of loans default on me at Funding Circle. Not the <2% they claim as an average, but more like 50% of all the loans I invested in defaulted. I'm in some very suspect loans at Funding Secure, including the Whitehaven loan where gross platform incompetence has been shown. In the worst case, I stand to lose a 5 figure sum on all the bad Lendy loans I'm in, including this one. I feel the risks here are not even worth the 12%. The stakes are already high but when you add in platform incompetence, potentially fradulent borrowers and potentially fraudulent valuers and other 3rd parties it seems lenders like us are going to take a bullet sooner or later regardless how well our DD is done. ... and one more thing, given the number of defaulted loans at Lendy as well as troubled loans like this one and other loans that were only resolved by desimating the PF, I personally don't think it's appropriate for Lendy to be sponsoring Cows and off having a good time. Their platform overall, to me, seems to be in a massive mess and I think all funds and efforts should be focussed on rescuing the situation.
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Post by charliebrown on Jul 5, 2017 15:48:41 GMT
The practices and especially the updates on the p2p platforms I've used are all appalling. There's not much love shown to us investors. FS isn't necessarily worse than others, but it's no better either. Those following the Whitehaven updates will see they've fed us a pack of lies, I'm assuming they've passed on lies given to them by the borrower. On the p2p platforms I've used, investors are treated to such gems as: No change. Borrower is working to refinance. Redemption imminent. funds awaited. The list goes on. All basically fobbing us off and treating us like gullible idiots. Welcome to p2p lending
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Post by charliebrown on Jul 4, 2017 13:23:45 GMT
I'm not in this loan. I have been an investor since November 2013. My maximum investment on the platform was in January 2015 at £28,000. My current exposure is £1,600. The latest photo of the site was taken on the 25/06/17. I am a Civil Engineer BSc. MICE. If frames are being erected they have discovered sky-hooks. FS are a disgrace. Great comment, I've given this a thumbs up. This comment says it all. The sky-hooks were out of stock but it's ok the frames will be held up by the flying pigs.
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Post by charliebrown on Jul 4, 2017 13:10:11 GMT
My "looks like a good bet" comment was clearly an ill informed comment. It was a surface level comment without knowing some of the hidden complications. However, since most investors also don't as a rule have that deeper information about loans, I doubt that's the reason why it's unpopular. More likely to be that it's a big loan and it's 11%. I'm also guilty of sometimes just checking the rate and the LTV and jumping in, what I'm learning from hanging out on these forums is that rate and LTV can mask a lot of important complications. LTV in particular is really not to be trusted at face value.
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Post by charliebrown on Jul 3, 2017 13:11:35 GMT
Thanks for the great info, CD. Excellent DD and analysis.
So yet again a property that couldn't sell at 7.5m being valued at 10,647,000. What's 3m quid between friends, it's neither here nor there, just a slight rounding error. Do they charge for these valuations, as they don't appear to be worth the paper they're written on.
Where does LY find these valuers? I wouldn't mind asking one of them to come and value my 3-bed semi.
Will think about selling out of this, but it's going to take a month of Sundays looking at the queue and the speed it's moving.
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Post by charliebrown on Jul 3, 2017 10:33:10 GMT
This loan looks like a decent bet to me. Why is it so unpopular? There's a lot "stuck" on the SM. I've sunk quite a bit into this and was reasonably happy, but do you ever get that feeling when you see a large amount on the SM that some people must know something you don't and have hit the eject button The VR notes £10m MV, but it was listed online @ £7.5m - so this was likely a 100% LTPV I have issues with the fact that they are are knocking down a perfectly good building - this has no bearing on the actual security, but it means that the building was priced up in the appropriate manner, not a dilapidated wreck with a price to match. As such, the LTV will skyrocket in the early stages, as they will flatten our security worth £10m £7.5m, and will take a while before the pendulum swings the other way. Due to the above, I felt 11% wasn't representative of the risks Thanks, CD. I hadn't quite put 2 and 2 together here. I totally get your point. If the property was listed at 7.5m why does it say that the purchase price was 9,250,000? It also says the valuation is 10,647,000 as the purchase price has nothing to do with the valuation In principle I'd agree that the purchase price has nothing to do with the valuation, but in practice I'd say it has everything to do with it. More complex than I'd thought.
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Post by charliebrown on Jul 3, 2017 10:04:51 GMT
This loan looks like a decent bet to me. Why is it so unpopular? There's a lot "stuck" on the SM. I've sunk quite a bit into this and was reasonably happy, but do you ever get that feeling when you see a large amount on the SM that some people must know something you don't and have hit the eject button
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Post by charliebrown on Jul 3, 2017 9:51:32 GMT
What shall we do about this Situation?
I actually only stand to lose 300 quid on this loan (if it's a total loss) so I am not too upset about that outcome to be honest, it could have been worse. However, I don't want to be one of those people that say I am not badly affected so just forget about it. Some people will be affected worse than I will be, and I also have close to 6 figures invested here on FS and next time I might not be so lucky.
I could withdraw from the platform like others have said they will, but that doesn't help improve the situation.
Suggestions? Where do we go from here?
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